Goodbye to Tenth Street - Softcover

Sandler, Irving

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0912887729 ISBN 13: 9780912887722

Publisher: Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press, 2018

Synopsis

Goodbye to Tenth Street is the first novel written by Irving Sandler, one of America’s finest and most acclaimed art critics. Sandler vividly portrays the New York art world from the death of Jackson Pollock in 1956 to the emergence of Andy Warhol in 1962. Goodbye to Tenth Street explores the business and the culture of Abstract Expressionism, including the soul-searching quest for artistic authenticity, the alcohol, the sex, and the intense rivalries among its proponents. Based on Sandler’s personal experiences, the art world of his invention brings to life a tight-knit but deeply competitive community of artists, critics, curators, and gallery owners, where connections are forged and betrayed, ideologies clash, and relationships blossom and implode with dizzying speed. Several of the characters are well known personalities—Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, et al.—and others hint at real people or are amalgams of art world denizens that may be identified by the astute reader. Art theory and art history are interwoven throughout the plot of this crisp and sparkling narrative. Sandler paints a dynamic portrait of the Abstract Expressionists and their visual breakthroughs and makes us ponder the pursuit for meaning, emotional honesty, and objectivity via artistic expression. With the arrival of Pop Art as the newest avant-garde, where commercialism supplants emotional expression, Sandler reveals the changing attitudes in the art world, the conflict between the older and younger generation of artists, and the necessity of these periodic upheavals in keeping art relevant to our times. Written from the perspective of a contemporary, Sandler gives a “behind-the-scenes” look at the personalities and events of this important period in American art history.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Irving Sandler is an art critic and historian who is Professor Emeritus of Art History at the State University of New York and a contributing editor of Art in America. Dr. Sandler is the author of numerous publications including four surveys of art since World War II: The Triumph of American Painting: A History of Abstract Expressionism (1970); The New York School: Painters and Sculptors of the 1950s (1978); American Art of the 1960s (1988); and Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s (1996). He has also written A Sweeper- Up After Artists: A Memoir (2003); From Avant- Garde to Pluralism: An On-The-Spot History (2006); and Abstract Expressionism and the American Experience (2009), SWEPT UP BY ART(2015), and GOODBYE TO TENTH STREET (2018). On behalf of contemporary artists, he co-founded Artists Space (1972), now the longest running non-profit exhibition space in New York. He was also instrumental in the development of the program of the Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation, which provides studio space in New York to artists (now the Sharpe-Walentas Studios) and continues to serve on its advisory committee. In 2008, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Art Criticism from the International Association of Art Critics.

Review

From The Wall Street Journal: "A lively novel of the Abstract Expressionist art scene that is everything you'd expect from critic Irving Sandler, who seemingly befriended every painter, writer and dealer in 1950s New York....As a critic for Art News and the New York Post, he profiled so many notables that Frank O'Hara called him a "balayeur des artistes" (or "sweeper-up after artists," a phrase Sandler borrowed for the title of his memoirs). His novel is as lively an account of its milieu as you'd expect from its famously gregarious author...We begin in 1963, just as kitschy, frothy Pop is replacing Abstract Expressionism as America's definitive art movement...full of drama and intrigue..." - Jackson Arn

From New Criterion, Art: "If Irving Sandler (1925-2018) had been Japanese, he would have been declared by his people a "Living National Treasure." From the 1950s to his death, he was a crucial figure in the evolving story of American vanguard painting and sculpture: a friend of artists and frequent studio visitor, director and founder of alternative galleries, art critic, professor of art history, museum director, and, above all, witness and chronicler of the changing desiderata of the moment...Goodbye to Tenth Street is a must for anyone interested in an art world very different from today's. Sandler immerses us in a time when artists sought aesthetic excellence, intensity, and--above all--individuality, striving to charge their work with their entire being rather than "strategizing." (Except for the novel's venal Neil Johnson.)...aesthetic values...were life-and-death matters, to be wrestled with in the studio and, elsewhere, to be argued about, challenged, fought over, and even died for. Sandler vividly recreates the atmosphere in which such beliefs flourished. For facts, The Triumph of American Painting and The New York School are still essential, along with his two volumes of memoirs, with their privileged information. But for sheer entertainment, go to Goodbye to Tenth Street." - Karen Wilkin

From Midwest Review: "Showcasing Irving Sandler's impressive narrative driven storytelling talents as a novelist, "Goodbye to Tenth Street" is an inherently fascinating and skillfully presented read that ably conjures up a kind of 'window on the past', making it very highly recommended for personal reading lists, as well as community and academic library Literary Fiction collections."

From The New York Times / Best Art Books of 2018, Roberta Smith NYT: The BEST ART BOOKS of 2018

'GOODBYE TO TENTH STREET: A NOVEL' By Irving Sandler (Pleasure Boat Studio). Anyone drawn to the postwar art scene that centered on Manhattan's East 10th Street should read the last book of Mr. Sandler, the art historian and critic extraordinaire who died in June. He was there in the late 1950s and early '60s taking notes while the Abstract Expressionists made history, and he became known for his meticulous accounts of their saga. But here he offers a roman à clef filled with the unverified gossip, overheard conversations, and rumors of nooners and backbiting that were unsuitable to fact-based history (though a few historical figures occupy the margins). The tale -- from charged studio visits to nasty exchanges at the Cedar Bar -- has its own sad, sordid, unsurprising truth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pleasure Boat Studio: A Literary Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0912887729
• ISBN 13: 9780912887722
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 373